


Don't Feed It

by GracieBirdie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 02, Boyd is the real MPV, Derek Hale is a Failwolf, Ghost Peter Hale, Human Alpha Stiles Stilinski, Human Vernon Boyd, It's Peter, Kanima Jackson Whittemore, M/M, Scott McCall isn't the best, Temporary Character Death, hinted at Boyd/Lydia?, or hinted at Boyd/Lydia/Jackson?, up to you to decide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-08-29 18:07:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20201020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GracieBirdie/pseuds/GracieBirdie
Summary: In which Stiles accepts Peter's offer, Peter still dies, but when Stiles doesn't turn into a werewolf he goes to the only other person he knows was bitten and didn't turn: Lydia. Along the way they accidentally adopt a couple werewolves and raise one from the dead, and save the town of Beacon Hills from a murderer or two (or eight...)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> um yes hello. this was supposed to be for steter week but *checks date* oops?
> 
> don't blame me guys, blame stardew valley for stealing all my free time...
> 
> also i have another 10k words of this or so, and i didn't want to put up another wip but... shrug emoji. you know i'll finish it...eventually...
> 
> unfortunately necessary disclaimer: there are going to be spelling/grammatical errors in this. I know this, no I'm not going to fix it now that I've already posted. No I don't want a beta. Anyone who still decides to point these things out to me will get a mean and/or bitchy response because I warned you. Don't like it don't read it.

"Yes or no?" Peter asked, staring Stiles down intently, leaning closer and closer to Stiles' wrist.

Peter's little speech about how Stiles could be just like Scott, or even  _ better _ than Scott just showed Stiles that as smart as Peter seems to think he was Peter also doesn't understand Stiles at all.

Stiles has never wanted to be like Scott. Scott might be Stiles' best friend but Stiles wasn't  _ blind _ . Most of the time the only thing Scott has going for him was his perpetually confused face and innocent crooked smile.

Stiles knew that since Scott had been bitten all of his high school outcast dreams had come true but his odds of dying before he turned eighteen had risen exponentially.

For Stiles, an entire new  _ world _ had opened up. Suddenly humans weren't the scariest things out there. There were literal monsters. And Stiles was woefully underprepared for it. He  _ needed _ to know everything about everything but he knew that he needed a foot in the door first.

No self respecting creature of the night would go around telling a rando human all their secrets but… they might be more willing to tell another creature.

So Stiles carefully shrugged so as not to pull his hand away and said "Sure, why not?"

Peter blinked at him, looking startled. For a long moment nothing happened and Stiles started to think Peter had only been fucking with him when suddenly Peter grinned at him, showing off his huge mouthful of fangs.

"Why not indeed." he slurred and ripped the cuff of Stiles' shirt open to bite into Stiles' skin.

It stung but Peter pulled away after barely a moment, not even a hint of blood on his mouth. He let go of Stiles with a pleased looking smirk.

Stiles pulled his arm back to inspect his wrist. There were tiny little pinpricks of blood in crescent shapes on both sides of his wrist. It was like Peter had barely applied any pressure at all. After the horror story Stiles had heard from Scott about what his bite had looked like the differences were stark.

Stiles glanced up at Peter and found him staring very intently at him. It was actually a little creepy. "I have to go check up on Lydia." Stiles said wanting to get away from Peter as quickly as possible as the full extent of his decision hit him.

Peter smirked at him. "You do that." he said it like he thought Stiles was pulling a Scott or something.

Stiles refused to actually  _ run _ away and give Peter the satisfaction of having scared Stiles.

Once he was safely inside the hospital he allowed himself a moment to panic that Peter might be able to pull that alpha mind trick bullshit he'd tried on Scott before he suddenly remembered that Scott was a goddamn idiot sometimes and he hadn't listened when Stiles tried to explain werewolves to him and he'd had no idea that Peter was messing with his head. Stiles hoped his foreknowledge would help him where it didn't help Scott.

Well, if Peter  _ did _ try to mess with Stiles he would... figure something out.

***

Stiles made Jackson drive his own car to the Hale house because it didn't actually matter if Jackson showed but if he did Stiles didn't want to have to drive him back to his car  _ or _ have to rely on him to get out of the woods. Jackson was a big enough asshole that if he got the chance he'd leave Stiles on his own.

Stiles had debated making some more molotov cocktails but he'd quickly dismissed the idea. Peter might be a murderer but he'd already been set on fire once and Stiles was positive that  _ that _ was most of the reason he was so crazy. So Stiles wasn't going to be setting Peter on fire again anytime soon. Or possibly ever.

Stiles watched Peter rip Kate Argent's throat out. After her pathetic attempt at an apology he didn't really feel all that bad about it. He was probably going to freak out about it later but in the moment all he really cared about was that a mass murderer was dead.

Peter didn't seem very satisfied with the last part of his revenge but Stiles wasn't surprised. Everyone who had been responsible for the fire was dead but Peter's family didn't suddenly come back to life and now Peter was going to have to think about what else he could do with his life.

He started to advance on Allison and Stiles knew he should step in and do...something. Maybe try to appeal to Peter's human side by pointing out when the fire happened Allison had been like ten and if she had been involved she hadn't known what she was doing. Not that Stiles thought she was involved because he was one hundred percent sure she hadn't been. But Peter wasn't done with being angry yet and Stiles hadn't turned into a werewolf in the last two hours so he just let Chris Argent shot Peter with enough bullets to get him to his knees.

He didn't try to stop Derek when he stepped up to finish Peter off. Peter had sort of brought that onto himself by killing Derek's sister.

Stiles stayed long enough to watch Peter fall down dead and then he climbed back into his jeep and drove home.

~~~

Peter had asked Stiles if he wanted the bite on a whim. He would have left him there in the parking garage but Stiles had to go and poke at him and Peter hadn't been able to resist.

He'd thought rubbing how much Scott's life had changed with the bite in Stiles' face would make him back down, really Peter just wanted to see how Stiles would react to that.

Stiles had just seemed calculating.

Weighing the pros and cons in his head before he'd agreed.

Peter had paused for a moment to see if Stiles would suddenly change his mind but Stiles had just stared him down.

So Peter had bitten him on the wrist.

No doubt if Peter had bitten him in the traditional place on the side Stiles would have run but he'd made his choice and having a third tie to the mortal plane was better than two.

Peter had bitten him quickly but carefully. the other two times he'd bitten someone had been bloody and messy but neither of them had agreed to the bite. Stiles had so he deserved a bit more care.

Only moment's after Peter had let Stiles go he was obviously second guessing himself so Peter let him go. Stiles had already told him where Derek was, which would lead him to Kate and really that had been all that he wanted.

If the night ended as badly as he thought it would Stiles would have some time to come to terms with his choices and hopefully be ready to face Peter again.

And if the night went well than Peter would let him have some time to deal with it. He'd handled Scott so well that Peter had no doubt he'd be able to handle himself too.

~~~

The night had gone exactly as badly as Peter had been expecting.

The only thing that surprised him was Stiles' lack of reaction.

He had just watched.

Obviously he was going to let Peter dig his own grave. But his complete lack of reaction to anyone else there was facitinating.

Not that Peter had much time to think about it.

***

A week after Peter had bitten him and Stiles was still human. The little pinpricks had healed and turned into teeny tiny white scars most people won't notice.

Stiles thought that they'd scared over too fast for something  _ not _ to have happened but he had no idea what. Peter had only said that if the bite didn't turn him it would kill him and Stiles felt totally fine.

Better than fine really. He felt pretty great for having experienced a lot of horrible shit and having his entire world view up ended.

But he was pretty sure he didn't feel  _ werewolf _ great. He didn't suddenly have enhanced senses or strength. He didn't feel the urge to run in the woods naked and howl at the full moon.

He suspected he was going to have to ask Derek for help. Not that he wanted to. If Stiles was going to turn into a werewolf and he was just being a late bloomer than Derek would probably try to convince him to join his pack and Stiles wasn't all that interested.

If Scott could handle himself without an alpha while Peter activly tried to fuck him up than Stiles was pretty sure he could handle himself without an alpha too.

He decided to try a little experiment first. At school, before first period started he leaned close to Scott and asked "Yo, do I smell different to you?"

Scott looked at him like he was crazy. "No?" he said hesitantly.

Stiles nodded seriously. "Cool. Just checking I didn't get bitten by a were-mosquito in my sleep or something."

Scott rolled his eyes and turn away from him in exasperation.

Stiles fought back a sigh. Looked like he would have to go find Derek after all.

***

Derek was a weirdo that either didn't have a job, savings, or any valid ID because he was living in an abandoned train station.

"So how many homeless people did you have to kick out to get these digs?" Stiles asked with a sneer.

Derek sneered right back. "What the hell do you want? Scott already told me I wasn't his alpha so I don't have to deal with you  _ or _ him."

Great, that was definitely not something Stiles wanted to deal with. Sure, he didn't want Derek to be his alpha but he didn't want to cut ties with him completely.

"I'm having a little problem and I was hoping you could give me a bit of advice." That should work. If Derek didn't think Stiles needed him to actually  _ do _ anything he'd probably help.

"I have enough problems of my own, I don't have time to deal with yours too." Derek growled.

This was ridiculous and Stiles was surrounded by incompetence. "You really think I'd come to you with a  _ normal _ problem?"

Derek didn't even blink, just continued to glare at him, not seeming to notice something off about Stiles at all.

Stiles threw his hands up in exasperation. "Fine! Fuck you too than!"

Derek was obviously not going to be any help. Stiles was going to have to go find someone actually smart to help him. And it would help if that someone also happened to have the same problem that Stiles was having.

***

On Lydia's first day back at school after being released from the hospital she and Allison sat apart from the rest of the student body and Stiles jumped at the opportunity.

Allison and Lydia were sitting across from each other at a table in the back of the cafeteria so Stiles sat down next to Allison so that Lydia didn't feel like he was trying to be creepy or crowd her.

She and Allison both stared at him like he was insane but he just smiled.

He knew Lydia liked to play her mind games but he decided he didn't want her to think he was messing with her so he just jumped right in. "So Lydia, you know how you got attacked on the lacrosse field? Will I saw what happened and I was wondering if you wanted to know what I saw."

She looked furious. From next to him Allison made a strangeled sound and when he glanced over she looked like she wanted to murder him.

He turned back to Lydia in time to watch her look between Stiles and Allison and for her expression to become thoughtful. And deadly. "Okay Stiles, you tell me your version of events."

"A werewolf attacked and bit you."

Lydia's smile instantly fell and she sat back in her chair to look at Stiles in disgust.

"Stiles what the  _ fuck _ !" Allison hissed and Stiles turned to glare at her.

"She has a right to know what happened, don't you think?" he challenged Allison.

"Leave her  _ alone _ !" Allison growled, obviously furious at him.

He pointedly turned back to Lydia to look at her seriously. "Lydia, if you want proof Scott can show you. He's a werewolf, but not the one who bit you." he added hastily.

Lydia was looking a little blank. "Scott... McCall... a....  _ werewolf _ ?"

"No!" Allison yelled. She looked around quickly and lowered her voice. "No, Stiles is just being an asshole."

Lydia started to frown at Allison. "The movie rental place...." she said slowly.

Stiles winced and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Ah, yeah I deleted the video of it off your phone, sorry."

Lydia instantly whipped her phone out of her purse and started to scroll through it.

Stiles and Allison both watched her in confusion.

"Holy shit." Lydia whispered. "I thought I'd had a bad trip."

Allison shot up and tried to pull Lydia's phone out of her hand but Lydia was faster than her. "What the hell are you doing Allison?"

Allison looked a little panicked. "Lydia that's not-"

Lydia went completely still. "Scott McCall is your boyfriend, Allison."

Allison looked like a deer caught in the headlights. "We broke up..." she said faintly.

Lydia turned to look at Stiles. "You said Scott could prove it?"

Stiles swallowed. This was going very well. He hoped Scott would actually help him. He quickly pulled out his phone to check his copy of Scott's work schedule. He grinned and said "Yep! He's closing the vet clinic tonight, if you come by around six I can let you in."

Allison made a strangled sound but Lydia and Stiles both ignored her.

Lydia nodded decisively. "Okay, I'll be there." she paused and looked at Allison. "Sit down Allison. Stiles you can leave now."

Stiles didn't have to be told twice. He grabbed his stuff and booked it for where Scott was staring at Allison dejectedly.

He flopped down next to Scott and said "Woah boy I do  _ not _ want to be there for that dressing down. I think Lydia can murder people with just her  _ eyes _ ."

Scott frowned at him in confusion. "What did you guys talk about?"

Stiles shrugged nonchalantly. "Oh you know, just about what happened to Lydia and how she's coming over to the clinic tonight so you can prove werewolves are real. The usual."

Scott opened and closed his mouth several times before he squeaked out a strangled "What?"

Stiles grinned at him threateningly. "And if you don't do it I'm  _ damn _ sure not going to help you with whatever it is you're planning on doing to win Allison back from her crazy dad."

Scott tried to pull out the sad puppy dog eyes but Stiles ignored him. He'd been immune to those for years.

***

"I don't get why you want to tell Lydia." Scott whined for the third time. Stiles was tired of it.

"I don't get why you  _ don't _ want to tell her." he shot back in annoyance.

"She's not a werewolf so she shouldn't have to deal with them." Scott said with a stubborn look on his face.

Stiles stared at him in bafflement. "What part of her knowing what happened to her would mean she'll have to deal with werewolves now? Maybe she'll find out and want absolutely nothing to do with werewolves." Stiles said, even though he wanted the exact opposite of that to happen.

Scott didn't look convinced but before he could protest again his head did the tilt thing it did when he was listening for something. His expression instantly got sappy and he said "Allison's here."

Stiles rolled his eyes but let Scott go open the front door for Allison and Lydia.

Lydia swaned in looking beautiful and furious. She eyed him and glanced over her shoulder into the lobby, probably saw Scott and Allison making out, and stepped right up into Stiles' space.

In a whisper she said "Allison seems to think that the only reason you told me is because you want to get into my pants but I have a feeling you want something else."

Stiles fought back a swoon. In an equally quiet whisper he said "It was entirely selfish on my part to tell you. But we'll have to talk about it somewhere else."

Lydia leaned back with a satisfied look on her face and Stiles was realized to see he was still handing her the right way.

In a normal volume of voice he asked "So how'd you get that video back?"

Lydia sneered at him as if he was an idiot and rolled her eyes. "Who  _ doesn't _ have their phones set to automatically back up to the cloud?"

Stiles actually felt a little impressed that he hadn't thought to delete any copies but he could admit to himself that he had been a little distracted at the time. "My mistake." he said trying to look chagringed but probably failing.

Lydia turned to look back out into the lobby and yelled "If either of you two are missing clothing when I come out there I'm going to murder you both and then Stiles for good mesure."

Stiles grimaced at the thought. He fought back a laugh when he heard something crash and Scott and Allison both swearing.

Lydia smirked at him and he didn't even try to stop himself from smirking back.

***

A few days after they'd given Lydia a crash course on the werewolf bullshit she cornered Stiles at his jeep after school.

"Okay I've processed some stuff so we can talk about your ulterior motives now." She said, pointedly tapping her fingers against the passenger door, no doubt waiting for Stiles to unlock it and let her in.

Stiles grinned at her and eagerly unlocked the door. She hopped in and primmly smoothed her skirt out.

"So." he said as he started up the jeep. "You pick where you want to talk."

She sent him a look that said she knew exactly what he was doing but he pointedly ignored her.

She hummed in thought for a moment before she said "If your dad's not home we can go to your house."

Stiles was surprised but he wasn't about question her choices when he didn't have a problem with going to his house.

"Coffee first?" he asked, since he figured she deserved  _ something _ for even being willing to listen to him.

She smiled. "Of course."

***

They sprawled out on the couch in the front room with coffee  _ and _ tacos because Lydia had been hungry and Stiles never said no to tacos.

She waved her hand at him and said, with her mouthful because apparently Stiles didn't deserve her good manors "Spit out what it is you want to ask me already. The suspense is killing me."

Stiles snorted but pulled down his shirt sleeve to show her the little tiny scars on his wrist.

She leaned forward to look, eyes narrowing in thought before they widened in surprise.

"Did he-?" she pointed excitedly at his wrist.

"Yep." Stiles said with a nod.

"But you're not-?" she curled her fingers to look like claws.

"Nope."

"Huh." she said, leaning back against the couch and eating more of her taco thoughtfully.

Stiles left her to it and ate his own food. This was why he'd told her after all.

After a few minutes she asked "Have you talked to Derek?"

Stiles grimaced. "I tried. He kicked me out before I could tell him the whole story because since Scott doesn't want him as his alpha that means Derek's not going to help me."

Lydia looked furious. "That's bullshit."

"Sure is." Stiles said in agreement.

She turned to look at him curiously. "So how'd it happen?"

Stiles cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well that's the reason I haven't talked to Scott about it yet."

Lydia looked smug again. "Did you ask for it?"

"No." he paused and watched her pout at having been wrong. "But he offered and I said yes."

Her eyebrows shot up. "He... offered?"

Stiles sighed and told her the unedited story of what happened between him and Peter.

At the end she just said "Huh." again.

"So we're in the same boat." he said.

She frowned but nodded slowly. "Not really. But now I get why you wanted to talk to me."

Stiles was relieved she understood and he agreed that their situations  _ were _ different.

"Let's compare notes." she finally said.

So they did and afterwords Stiles felt better than he had since he'd agreed to let Peter bite him.

***

The next day at lunch Stiles was outside on the bleachers hiding from Scott because he wanted Stiles to play messenger instead of just getting a pay by the minute burner phone like Stiles had suggested.

Lydia appeared out of nowhere and sat down next to him. "Hiding from Scott?" she asked, the look on her face half amused half fake sympathetic.

"Yeah, how'd you know?" he asked morrosly.

"Allison tried to rope me into passing notes between her and Scott. So I'm hiding from her." she said primly.

"I told him to just get a burner phone."

Lydia cocked her head in thought for a moment before she pulled her phone out and texted someone, hopefully Allison. She's probably listen to reason.

Very casually Lydia said "So have noticed that Isaac Lahey has been acting super weird?"

"Who?" Stiles asked, frowning as he tried to think of anyone that would being acting strange enough for Lydia to not only notice but also bring it up to Stiles.

"He's second string on the lacrosse team." she sent him a judgement look. "You sit next to him at most games."

"Oh." Stiles said shamidly. “ _ That _ Isaac Lahey."

Lydia rolled her eyes at him. "He's been acting a lot like Scott did after he got bitten. Up to and including getting good at lacrosse overnight  _ and _ hitting on me."

Stiles frowned. "Why didn't I notice?" he asked, more to himself than Lydia.

She rolled her eyes at him. "When was the last time you went to practice?"

Stiles frowned harder in thought. There hadn't been any practice during spring break but he'd somehow completely missed the practices he should have been to on Monday and Wednesday. 

He had no idea how he'd forgotten about them  _ or _ why no one had called him on it. Coatch and Scott would murder him if he missed practice.

Lydia saw the look on his face and very casually said "I guess you haven't noticed the way you've been kind of mopey lately."

He blinked at her. "Mopey?"

She nodded. " _ I _ know you're worried about what's going to happen with our bites but no one else does so to them you just don't look very good."

He made a mental note to tell Coach next time he saw him that he'd been feeling sick and stressed out and that was why he'd missed practice.

Or, maybe, if he  _ did _ suddenly turn into a werewolf he should just quit the lacrosse team. If Scott and maybe Isaac were on the team that was more than enough werewolves to draw attention to themselves. Stiles didn't want any hunters that might be smart enough to look at small town sport news to get any ideas about him.

Lydia smirked at him. "I can see the wheels turning."

Stiles smirked right back at her. "You know full well how much of an advantage it is to be underestimated. If I  _ do _ end up being a werewolf than I don't want to be showing that off to the whole school and anyone else that might be watching."

She nodded thoughtfully.

Deciding to change the subject to something a little more pressing he asked "You wanna go on a field trip with me to ask Derek if he's running around turning teenagers into werewolves?"

Lydia grinned at him. "I would absolutely  _ love _ to ask him why the hell he hadn't come to check up on me."

Stiles grinned right back. Lydia was going  _ destroy _ Derek and it was going to be beautiful.

***

Stiles and Lydia walked right into Derek's train car of depression and caught him in the middle of giving what looked like a Werewolf 101 class to Isaac and a girl and a guy Stiles was sure they went to school with.

Derek look furious and stalked over to Stiles and Lydia. "What the hell are you two doing here?" he snarled.

Stiles smiled sweetly at him. "We wanted to know if you were running around biting teenagers but I think this answers that question."

Isaac and the other two would be or maybe already werewolves frowned at them in confusion while Derek narrowed his eyes. "It's not any of your concern or  _ hers _ ." he leaned closer to Stiles to hiss "What the hell is she even doing here?"

Lydia leaned closer to Derek and made one of her patented airhead confused looks. "Geeze I have  _ no idea _ why I should be here." she cocked her head to the side and put her finger to her chin thoughtfully. "I mean it's not as though I was bitten by a werewolf or anything."

Derek had the decency to blanch at the reminder. He pulled himself up and crossed his arms over his chest. "I checked on you in the hospital, you didn't change."

It was Stiles' turn to cock his head to the side, and said thoughtfully, "What the hell does that even mean. If she didn't change what happened?"

Derek glanced back at his would be betas for a moment, looking lost. And Stiles fought back a groan at the realization Derek had no idea what he was doing.

Derek cleared his throat awkwardly and said, "Well, the bite didn't kill you so that means you're immune."

Lydia and Stiles stared at him in confusion.

"That means nothing to me." Lydia said with a frustrated shake of her head.

Derek looked equally frustrated. "It means you're not going to turn."

Stiles rubbed his hand across his face. "That's  _ it _ ?"

Derek was starting to look dangriously close to wanting to murder them so Stiles gently put his hand on Lydia's arm and said pointly "Come on Lydia, he's obviously usesless."

She huffed but let Stiles turn her back towards the door.

"Wait, hang on." the guy that Stiles couldn't remember the name of said, coming up to them, looking between them and Derek. "You didn't tell us that other people knew about this other than Scott McCall."

Stiles stared at him in horror. "Oh my god please tell me he told you guys about hunters."

The guy, Boyd, his name was  _ Boyd _ , frowned some more but nodded. "Yeah he told us about hunters but not about you two." he gestured at Lydia and asked "Did he bite you?"

Stiles groaned deeply. "You don't even know about  _ Peter _ ?"

The girl and Isaac came over to Boyd and gave Derek mildly distrustful looks. Obviously Derek had been counting on them not asking very many questions and he'd  _ definitely _ not factored Stiles and Lydia into his plans. A real dumb move on his part. 

It looked like the lure of becoming a werewolf had been strong enough for them to trust Derek enough to let him bite them, the second he proved to have mislead them they were going to jump ship.

"Who's Peter?" the girl asked, staring Derek down intently.

Derek glowered at all of them. "My uncle. He killed my sister, took the alpha power from her and bit Scott and Lydia. I killed him after he killed several people."

The three betas turned to Stiles and Lydia for confirmation.

Stiles and Lydia looked at each other and then nodded.

"Yeah, that's basically what happened." Stiles said with a shrug.

Boyd was still frowning. "You said the bite would either kill you or turn you, you didn't say anything about a third option."

Derek's jaw clenched even harder. "It's very rare, usually only one in a thousand are immune to the bite."

Stiles and Lydia glanced at each other and when Stiles turned back to look at Derek he noticed that Boyd was watching them.

Finally Boyd said "I have to think about this some more before I agree."

That was interesting.

Lydia curled her hand around Stiles' arm and said "Well, if that's all you have to say Derek than Stiles and I will be on our way."

"Do you think you could give me a ride?" Boyd asked with a very slightly pleading look on his face.

Stiles and Lydia looked at each other again. Lydia shrugged so Stiles said "Yeah sure, no problem."

Boyd smiled before he looked at Isaac and the girl. He raised his eyebrows questioningly and the girl said "Uh, would you mind-"

Stiles waved his hand. "Anyone that wants a ride can have a ride."

He and Lydia turned away from them and walked out the door but not before Stiles caught the look of pure fury on Derek's face. Stiles would not be at all surprised if he showed up at Stiles' house and murdered him.

Stiles really had to look into getting himself some wolfsbane for protection.

Lydia opened the passenger door and pulled the seat forward so that Boyd, the girl,  _ and _ Isaac could all climb into the back seat.

Once they were settled she hopped in and Stiles took off.

"Ugh." he said with a sigh. "He was so useless."

Lydia hummed. "Yes, but I don't think  _ we _ were useless." she glanced pointedly over her shoulder.

He heard Boyd sigh and he said "Yeah, I was just about to say yes without even really thinking about it."

Stiles laughed and even to him it sounded a little hysterical. Lydia soothingly touched his arm.

"So..." the girl said "This is already not what I was expecting."

Stiles suddenly took pity on the three of them. After having to watch what Scott had gone through he figured he was in a good enough position to help them the same way he'd helped Scott.

"Do you three want to head to my place and we can go over what happened more in-depth?" he asked, glancing in the rearview mirror to watch their faces.

All three of them looked relieved and Boyd said "That would be great, thank you."

He looked at Lydia and asked "You in or do you want me to take you home?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Buy me coffee."

Stiles took that as her agreeing to come back to his place.

***

After Stiles had explained everything that had happened over the last two months Boyd, Isaac, and Erica were all visibly calmer.

Obviously the worry they'd felt over finding out that Derek was a  _ murderer _ had lessened at hearing the whole story.

They were in the middle of eating pizza when Boyd suddenly leaned closer to Stiles and asked "I feel like you left out something."

Stiles raised his eyebrows questingly. "Oh? Like what?"

"Like how Peter bit you and you didn't turn." Boyd said, staring at him intently.

Lydia snorted in amusement and said "Oh, I like this one."

Boyd actually blushed while Erica and Isaac snickered.

Stiles sighed deeply. "We're trying to keep that on the DL guys." he said weakly.

Erica raised her hands in a do no harm gesture. "Hey, your secret's safe with me."

Isaac frowned. "But why is it a secret?"

Stiles chewed on his lip and glanced at Lydia. She looked empassive so he finally said "Scott didn't ask to get bitten and he kind of hates being a werewolf."

Boyd and Erica made matching noses of disgust.

"He sure doesn't  _ act _ like he hates it." Boyd said.

Stiles shrugged. "Well since I agreed to it he'll... be very mad."

It was Isaac's turn to look disgusted. "If it was your choice, what he wants doesn't matter."

Stiles looked at him in surprise and was even more surprised at the nodes of agreement that Boyd, Erica,  _ and _ Lydia were giving him.

He just shrugged again and focused on his pizza.

Erica and Issac's heads suddenly snapped up and the front door opened. His dad walked in and then instantly went still at the sight of five teenagers in his living room.

"Uh, what's going on?" he asked hesitantly.

"Uh..." Stiles said eloquently. He hadn't thought about what he would say if his dad got home before everyone left.

Luckily Lydia jumped to his rescue. "We have a history project and decided it would be best to meet here instead of the library, Sir."

His dad blinked at them for a few more seconds before he finally shrugged and came over to get a slice of pizza.

"Hey!" Stiles said half heartedly.

His dad didn't even have the decency to look ashamed of himself. "I am  _ beat _ so I'm off to bed. You kids try to keep it down okay?" he took off after a course of "Of course, Sir." and only glanced back a couple of times as he left the room.

"Is that normal?" Lydia asked, eyes wide.

Stiles shrugged helplessly. "Maybe he recognized you and didn't wanna like, scare you off or something?"

Lydia rolled her eyes hard while everyone else sniggered.

"Please, if you were going to hit on me you would have done it when we were alone."

Stiles just shrugged awkwardly. He'd been so caught up with what had been going on with their bites that he'd sort of forgotten he was supposed to have a crush on her.

Erica sighed and said, "I should probably get home before my parents call the police." she winced and glanced upstairs. "That would be  _ really _ awkward."

Everyone gathered up their things and threw away their trash and then piled into the jeep.

After Stiles had pulled away from Boyd's house and Lydia was the last person in the car with him he said "So, that went well."

She hummed and said "I do believe we accidently adopted two stray werewolves and a very curious human."

"Uh,  _ we _ ?" Stiles asked, sounding strangled.

She turned to smirk at him. "Were you planning on handling handling  _ two _ new werewolves on your own?"

Stiles shrugged helplessly. "I was going to make Scott help?"

She rolled her eyes. "If the way he's been ignoring you the last few days are anything to go by you'd probably have a hard time with that."

Stiles winced at the painful reminder that Scott was still mad at him for not listening to Allison when she said she didn't want Lydia involved.

"I guess in the end it'll depend on if they decided to trust Derek or not." he finally said.

Lydia flipped her hair over her shoulder and smirked at him. "After they saw us willing to share information and having an actual house to spend time in? There's  _ no way _ they're going back to that walking disaster."

"They might not have a choice." Stiles said quietly, thinking of Peter’s alpha yelling trick.

Lydia shook her head. "If Derek tries anything like that they'll  _ never _ go back to him and I'm sure he knows at least that much."

Stiles sighed as he pulled up to her house. "Well, I guess we'll just see what happens."

Lydia just smiled at him and hopped out of the car with a wave.

***

At school the next day Boyd, Erica, and Isaac didn't hesitate to talk to either Stiles or Lydia and Stiles figured if they hadn't have ended up with two baby werewolves they at least ended up with three new friends.

It was a strange thought for him to have, not only because it implied that he and  _ Lydia _ were friends.

Werewolves sure had turned his life on it's head.

All morning Scott sent Stiles confused puppy dog looks and at lunch when Lydia grabbed Stiles and pulled him over to the table were Boyd, Erica, and Isaac were already sitting at Scott wandered after them and awkwardly sat next to Stiles.

"So Scott." Boyd said, giving Scott an obviously fake smile. "Do you notice anything... different about Erica and Isaac here?" he asked, gesturing at the betas.

They both smiled and waved at Scott who frowned at them.

"No?" he said hesitantly.

Boyd, Lydia, and Stiles all sighed while Erica and Isaac sneered at him.

"Wow, you're a shitty werewolf." Erica said.

Scott reared back away from the table in shock. "What the hell is going on?" he whispered at Stiles.

Stiles shrugged. "Derek decided to make some betas."

Scott gasped in horror. "We have to stop him." he said.

All five of them sent Scott identical looks of bafflement.

"Uh, it's a little late for that?" Isaac said hesitantly.

Scott looked stricken. "He can't just around turning people like that! It's wrong!"

Boyd, Erica, and Isaac all looked mildly furious.

"Listen buddy." Erica said, leaning towards Scott. "It's none of your business if we gave consent."

Scott that mulish look on his face and Stiles sighed deeply already knowing what was coming.

"Someone needs to stop him." Scott said.

Stiles waved his hand to stop any protests the others might have. "Okay Scottie. You go right ahead and give Derek a big old lecture on what he can and cannot do without your say so."

Scott nodded decisively while everyone else just looked annoyed.

It was one thing for them to be mad at Derek for not telling them the whole story before they agreed to be turned but it was completely different for someone else to show up and claim that it didn't matter if they had agreed to it, their choice was the wrong choice.

Stiles could sympathize considering that was the exact reason he hadn't told Scott about his own bite yet.

Boyd, Erica, and Isaac all turned to look at him with matching looks of understanding on their face. He was pretty sure none of them would be telling Scott about him behind his back.

***

Later that night when his dad got him he wiggled his eyebrows at Stiles and asked "So how'd it go with Miss Lydia Martin yesterday?"

Stiles shrugged. "Nothing exciting happened."

His dad frowned. "You feeling okay kid?"

Stiles smiled at him. "Yeah, I'm okay."

His dad didn't look at all convinced.

"Actually I wanted to talk to you about something." Stiles said.

"Go for it."

"I'm going to quite lacrosse." he said in a rush.

His dad looked surprised. "Quite lacrosse? How come?"

Stiles shrugged again. "I just realized I'm never going to get off of second string and I've been thinking that there might be something better I can do with my time."

"Like what?" he asked, frown on his face. Stiles was sure he wasn't dissuading his fears at all.

Stiles floundered for a few seconds as he tried to think up something believable he could say.

Luckily his dad took pity on him and asked "Is this really about Jackson and Scott?"

Stiles grabbed the convenient excuse. He gave a deep sigh and said "It's just that it's been made  _ very _ clear to me that I'm not going to making first line  _ ever _ and I'd just...reather not deal with any of it at all anymore."

His dad looked a little murderous but finally said, "It's your choice kid. I'm not going to make you do a sport you don't want to do anymore." he paused and frowned before suddenly grabbing Stiles in a hug. "Just remember not to let assholes like Jackson Whittemore force you to stop doing things you like."

Stiles flailed a little in surprise at the hug but he didn't try to pull away. He patted his dad's back. "Yeah, good advice. I'll try not to."

His dad sighed and pulled back. "That's as good as I'm going to get isn't it?"

Stiles grinned at him in answer.

***

It had been a couple of days since Lydia and Stiles had accidently adopted three new friends and Scott had finally taken Stiles' advice on getting a burner phone because, according to Lydia, Allison had told him to. Stiles tried not to feel too annoyed by that.

The only other interesting thing that happened was that Allison's creepy hunter grandfather had come to town and had apparently decided to become the school principal.

Stiles was pretty baffled. He had no idea  _ why _ the guy would want to be a school principal of all things.

"Allison keeps talking about how creepy bad-touch his is and it's kind of worrying me." Lydia said with a frown.

"And her dad is putting up with that? After the way he kicked Scott's ass when he thought Scott was  _ human _ ?" Stiles asked, shocked.

"She said he seems kind of scared of him and that's freaking her out even more."

"Did you see how her mom's his new secretary?" Boyd asked. "Honestly  _ she _ scares me a whole hell of a lot more than sad crusty old grandpa Argent."

Lydia smiled at him. "That's because you're smart enough to recognize a dangerous woman and give her the respect she deserves."

Boyd looked pleased about that.

"Why don't you tell Allison to talk to her mom?" Stiles asked. "Or..." he paused and frowned at Lydia. "Or, if worse comes to worse maybe you could tell her mom that he was being creepy with you too?"

Lydia hummed and nodded. "Only as a last resort though."

"You'd need back up with that." Erica said thoughtfully. She and Lydia had a kind of strange relationship. They seemed to get along okay and didn't try to out bitch each other or anything but they also didn't seem to be friends.

Stiles just choaked it up to girls being weird and left them alone to do what they wanted. Which, according to Lydia, was the smart thing to do.

Isaac was still obviously a little uncomfortable and Stiles suspected that there was a lot going on with him beside the werewolf stuff. At least Isaac and Erica had become fast friends.

Boyd was by far the most laid back and easy going of all five of them. He seemed sort of blown over by Lydia half of the time but went along with most of what she wanted. When he  _ didn't _ agree with her, he argued. It was amazing to watch tiny Lydia go tow to tow with him but it was obvious from watching them that they both really enjoyed the verbal fights they had.

Stiles wasn't sure exactly how he fit in with all of them but he felt...  _ good _ around them. He felt strangely content. He had no idea  _ why _ but he eventually liked all of them and liked spending time with them.

Maybe it was all that time he had spent with Scott one on one and then having that suddenly ripped away by werewolves and Allison Argent that had made him be happy with just hanging out doing basically nothing with other people.

***

Stiles was home alone when he heard Lydia knocking on the front door. He wondered when he'd gotten so used to her coming over that he knew what her  _ knock _ sounded like.

He opened the door for her and took in her slightly smudged make-up, red eyes, and grocery bag in her hand.

"Come on in." he said without even asking what was going on.

She went into the kitchen and pulled out some spoons and then went back into the living room to flop out onto the couch. She pulled out a gallon of Death by Chocolate ice cream and Stiles sat down next to her on the couch.

She handed him a spoon and said "Allison’s being a shit friend and I think I'm being haunted."

Stiles stared at her as he tried to figure out which one he should tackle first. "Uhh...?" he asked awkwardly.

She glared at him and he gulped. "How articulate of you."

Stiles laughed awkwardly. "Yeah I know. I just have no idea what I should be saying right now."

Lydia gave him a slightly watery smile. "You don't have to say anything, just listen to me."

"I can do that!" Stiles said in relief.

Stiles listened as she told him about Allison not believing her about her haunting idea while Stiles spent a lot of time wincing in sympathy.

Once she was finished talking about Allison she said "As for the being haunted thing."

Stiles sat up more fully to listen because ghosts sounded like something he might be able to help with, girl friends problems.

"I keep seeing this guy around, he said his name is Peter and I didn't really think much about it until I blacked out and woke up without remembering what happened."

"Well shit!" Stiles said in surprise. "Blacking out and not knowing what happened to Scott when Peter was trying to get him to play murder sidekick."

Lydia nodded, because of course she already knew that, Stiles had told her about it.

"I think we should give Derek one more chance to be helpful and if he isn't we'll go off and find the kitchest new-age hippy bookstore we can and buy a bunch of crystals and books on how to expel ghosts."

She chuckled. "Obviously." Relieved that they had at least a tiny plan she picked up the remote for the tv and turn on HGTV reruns while Stiles went to grab his laptop to do research.

***

Derek had rolled his eyes the second the word ghost came out of Lydia’s mouth and had thrown them out of the train car with a quip about them needing to stop wasting his time. Considering the way they’d practically stolen his betas out from under him neither Stiles or Lydia could blame him all that much for not wanting to listen to them, but they were both still annoyed by it.

***

"So we're going on a little road trip this weekend to a bunch of book shops to see if we can find some real books on the supernatural." Lydia said to the cafeteria table at large.

Boyd, Erica, and Isaac all looked interested.

"Is that the royal we?" Boyd asked.

"It depends on if any of you want to go with me." Lydia said, flipping her hair over her shoulder imperiously.

"I'm going." Stiles said, unnecessarily.

"It sounds... fun, I guess." Erica said, probably trying to sound uninterested but she was smiling.

"I'd love to go." Boyd said with a grin.

Isaac looked hesitant. "When you say weekend road trip you don't mean staying at a motel or anything do you?" he asked awkwardly.

"I do not." Lydia said. "I meant we'll be going like three hours away but we'll be back before midnight. Probably."

Isaac relaxed and smiled awkwardly. "Okay, yeah I'd like to go too."

"Great!" Lydia said, even though they'd already expected them to agree. "We're taking my car because I don't trust Stiles' jeep on a good day."

"Hey!" Stiles said, putting his hand over his heart.

"That thing needs an overhaul." Erica said in agreement.

Stiles pouted at her and then stuck his tongue out when Boyd and Isaac nodded along. "You all suck."

"The only one that  _ sucks _ is you Stilinski." Jackson said, walking behind him and letting his hip hit Stiles' chair hard enough to push it forward.

Stiles rolled his eyes. "If you're implying that I give blow-jobs that's really not a great insult."

Jackson sneered at him. "No I mean that you're just awful."

Stiles stared blankly at him. "I think that might be the worst attempt at giving an insult I've ever heard."

"Why don't you fuck off Jackson." Lydia hissed, annoyance on her face.

Jackson reared back from her in surprise. "Lydia..."

She pointedly turned away from him and when he realized no one at the table cared about his presence he stomped off with a growl that Stiles thought sounded a little.... not human.

He turned to frown at the others. "Derek didn't say anything about biting Jackson did he?" he asked, suddenly remembering how much Scott said Jackson wanted to be a werewolf.

Erica, Boyd, and Isaac all frowned and looked at each other in worry.

"He didn't, but he also didn't tell us about Lydia so who knows." Boyd said, frowning hard at where Jackson had sat down next to Danny.

"I hope he didn't because that would  _ not _ be good." Stiles said with a shutter.

Everyone else nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

***

Lydia was driving her car and everyone else had played rock paper scissors to see who got to sit in the front seat. Boyd won and grinned smugly while Lydia judged everyone over the top of her sunglasses.

Once they were all settled in, Isaac and Erica in the backseat with Stiles squished in between them, junk food passed around, and drinks squared away Boyd asked "So are we looking for something specific?"

"Ghosts." Lydia said decisively.

"Ghosts?" Isaac splottered.

"Are ghosts a  _ thing _ ?" Erica asked.

"If they're not I'm losing my mind and I know which one I would prefer." Lydia said flippantly.

Everyone was shocked into silence for a few seconds before Boyd finally said "Could you explain that please?"

So Lydia explained her haunting experiences again and Stiles found he was relieved to not be the only other person to know what was going on.

Stiles didn't really believe in that whole adage about two heads being better than one but he  _ did _ think having someone with fresh eyes look over a problem definitely helped so he was happy to listen to the others throw ideas around.

After a few minutes he said "What I want to know is why he's haunting Lydia and not me."

Lydia looked at him in the rearview mirror. "Hey, if you want him you can have him."

Stiles huffed. "I  _ mean, what's _ the difference between us that he's haunting you?"

"Huh." Boyd said thoughtfully. "That's a good question."

Lydia frowned in thought. "Hm, you're right. There must be  _ some _ difference. He bite you last, you'd think you'd be the one seeing his spirit running around."

"Derek said it was rare that you didn't turn so maybe you  _ did _ turn, just... not into a werewolf?" Isaac suggested tentatively.

Everyone turned to stare at him.

He shifted uncomfortably and said "Well if  _ werewolves _ exist who's to say  _ other things _ don't exist too?"

Stiles' and Lydia's eyes meet through the rearview mirror, shocked that that hadn't thought of that.

Erica bumped her shoulder against Stiles’ and huffed "God, I wish Derek was more helpful."

Everyone sighed deeply in agreement.

***

The first three bookstores they went to were complete busts. They didn't even have any books that couldn't be bought online.

The fourth had some old books that looked like they'd seen better days but when Stiles picked them up they made his fingertips tingle strangely.

The woman behind the counter tried to sell Lydia a rose quartz pendant in the shape of an actual rose but the woman said it had to do with good health not ghosts so Lydia refused to buy it on principle. Stiles bought the books and Erica bought the pendent because “Better to be safe than sorry!”

The fifth book store, the one that was farthest away from Beacon Hills had a backroom with a beaded curtain over the doorway and a woman at a shawl covered table inside. She had a crystal ball. She looked up and smiled when Lydia pushed the curtain back, but the smile fell off her face instantly at the sight of her. She pointed over Lydia's shoulder and screamed.

"What are you looking at?" Lydia asked her, eyes wide.

"It's a  _ monster _ !" the woman yelped.

"Okay..." Lydia said slowly, hiding her excitement in case this woman was messing with them. "What does it look like?"

"Like..." the woman stuttered. "Like.... a bad horror movie werewolf."

Lydia and Stiles looked at each other, eyes wide.

"So do you see ghosts or what?" Erica asked bluntly and the woman flinched.

"What kind of question is that?" she spat.

"A...reasonable one?" Isaac said hesitantly.

She didn't look impressed. She got up and brushed past them all, out into the main part of the store. The man behind the counter didn't even look up from the book he was reading so Stiles suspected stuff like what had just happened happened regularly.

The woman disappeared into the stacks for a few seconds before coming back with a box in her hands. She held the box out to Lydia.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me." Lydia said flatly.

"Ooh boy Lyds." Erica said sounding gleeful. "We're about to enter  _ next level _ horror movie shit."

Everyone groaned but Lydia took the Ouija board box from the woman.

"If this summons the devil I'm siccing him on you." Lydia threatened.

The woman rolled her eyes. "As if I haven't heard  _ that _ before.”

***

They took the ouija board back to Stiles' house and set it up on the kitchen table. They decided to leave the overhead lights on and forgo any candles, just in case it actually worked they didn't want to offend Peter by bringing fire where he might be able to see it and get offended.

They sat down around the table with Stiles and Lydia across from each other and Boyd with a pen and paper ready to write down anything the board might spell out.

Everyone reached out to put their pointer fingers on the planchette and Stiles suddenly realized he had no idea what to say.

Everyone just sat there for a few seconds before Boyd huffed and said "Guess none of you have younger siblings. Move the pointer around a little and then Lydia should call the name of the person we want to talk to."

The planchette slid around the board for a few seconds before it stopped and Lydia took a deep breath. In a slow and steady voice she said "I'd like to talk to Peter Hale please."

For a long moment nothing happened.

And then Stiles felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and a cold chill go up his spine. He felt someone's breath against his ear and Lydia's eyes went huge and her mouth dropped open in shock as she stared over his shoulder.

He heard a familiar voice loudly whisper in his ear, "I can't believe you just tried to talk to me on a  _ Ouija board _ ."

Stiles swallowed hard but refused to turn around. He didn't even twitch.

Lydia's eyes met his and he nodded at her. She visibly pulled herself together and said "I'd like to know why the  _ hell _ you're haunting me."

Boyd, Isaac, and Erica were looking back and forth between Lydia and Stiles. They looked confused but none of them said anything, waiting for the planchette to move.

Peter chuckled in Stiles' ear and whispered "I see why you like her so much. She has moxy."

Stiles rolled his eyes and relaxed a little. He was pretty sure now that this was actually Peter and not some rando ghost and Stiles knew how to deal with Peter Hale.

"Just answer the question Peter." he said in exasperation.

He heard Peter's breath catch, and how a ghost could  _ breathe _ wasn't really something Stiles wanted to think about.

"Aren't you full of surprises." the words barely any sound at all, and for a moment it felt like he was touching Stiles' wrist where the bite scar was, which just happened to be the hand Stiles had on the planchette. Stiles jumped at the phantom touch but he refused to let go, having seen one too many horror movies about what happens when you broke the summoning circle.

Peter chuckled. Stiles felt Peter’s hand slid from his wrist up to lay across Stiles’ hand and he suddenly felt his mouth moving "I need a little help getting back on my feet and I was hoping Lydia would do something for me."

Lydia's eyes narrowed. "Why would I do anything for you? You attacked me, remember?"

"And that's why I didn't just  _ ask _ ." Peter, or was it Stiles, staid in exasperation.

"If I do this favor for you and you 'get back on your feet' will you be leaving me alone?" Lydia asked shrudly.

"Sure, if you help me I'll leave you alone. But I could also explain to you why the bite didn't turn you." he said, obviously hoping that Lydia would be tempted into helping him.

Lydia pretended to think about it but Stiles already knew she'd accept. And if she decided she didn't want to help him than Stiles would. He almost desperately wanted to know what the hell was going on.

"Alright, fine, I'll help you." Lydia said finally, trying to sound put upon.

"You really won't have to do much. There's really one one hard part." Peter said teasingly.

***

They were all spread out on the pullout couch and watching a very dumb horror movie about ouiji boards.

Boyd and Stiles were sitting shoulder to shoulder while Lydia sat in Stiles’ lap and laid with her head on Boyds thigh. Her legs were across Erica’s stomach where she was laying next to Stiles, pressing her knees against Stiles’ other shoulder, her head pressed against Isaac’s, who was laying spread out across the bottom of the pullout, ridiculous long legs hanging off the edge.

"It was so  _ creepy _ ." Boyd said. "It was like someone was using you like a puppet."

"It kind of made me want to throw up." Erica said casually.

Isaac still looked a little sick and had his arms over his eyes. "I'm never touching one of those things again." he groaned.

"I just don't get it." Stiles said absently. "Why could Lydia and I hear him but no one else could..."

"Maybe because he bit both of you but not any of us." Boyd suggested.

"That has to be it." Lydia said. “No, the weird part is him talking  _ through you _ and not me.”

“Actually I think that was because you wanted to talk to him in the first place.” Stiles said, as confident in his answer as he could be, all things considered.

Lydia hummed thoughtfully.

"How the hell are we going to convince  _ Derek _ to help?" Isaac asked. "That's going to be the real hard part."

Everyone groaned in agreement.

"Well, at least we have about a month to figure it out." Stiles said hopefully.

"But why does it have to happen on my  _ birthday _ ?" Lydia whined and everyone chuckled a little.

"We could celebrate the day before or after?" Erica suggested, sounding a little hesitant.

Lydia gave a huge put upon sigh but Stiles knew she was a little pleased by what Erica had said.

Stiles looked around at these people he accidentally became so comfortable with as to have, dare he say it, a puppy pile with.

He poked Lydia in the leg and asked her "How'd this happen?" arm waving around at the others.

She rolled her head to frown at him. She shrugged and said "Werewolves I guess."

"Huh." Stiles said.

***

All five of them were mostly asleep, and it was  _ well _ past midnight but everyone except Isaac and Stiles had called their guardians to ask to spend the night so it didn't really matter.

Everyone had raided Stiles' closet except for Boyd, who had wisely brought spare clothes because he'd apparently used to be a boy scout.

They were all still sprawled out on the pullout couch but they were watching classic monster movies instead of awful B ones.

"You're dad's home." he heard Erica mutter from where she was painting Stiles’ toe nails. She'd found the nail pollish in Lydia’s purse and had painted everyone's nails to match, much to everyone's amusement.

He hummed in acknowledgement and when he dad walked through the front door, he sent him a lazy wave.

His dad went still the same way he had the last time he found them all in the living room and asked "History project going well?"

There were a lot of sleepy murmurs of agreement.

He nodded awkwardly and stepped closer to the couch. "Ah, Isaac right?" he asked and Isaac's head shot up in surprise.

"Yes, sir?" he asked, eyes slightly terrified.

"Will you come with me into the kitchen? I need to talk with you."

Isaac looked horrified. Everyone quickly shook off their sleepiness and sat up to look at his dad.

"What's going on?" Stiles asked, suspicious at his dad's 'talking to a witness' tone.

His dad winced. "I'm afraid it's bad news, Isaac."

Isaac made a soft wounded sound and grabbed at Erica. "Just tell me here please." he whispered but he obviously already knew what had probably happened.

He only had one family member after all.

His dad didn't look too happy but he said gently "Your father was murdered a few hours ago."

Isaac gasped in shock. " _ Murdered _ ?"

His dad nodded sadly. "I'm afraid so. Unfortunately we're still trying to figure out what happened so I can't tell you much." he paused and looked over all them with a frown. "I do have to ask you a question though."

Stiles knew what he was going to ask and jumped in before Isaac could get even more upset. "All of us have been together since seven this morning."

His dad's eyebrows went up. "Why so early?"

Lydia answered him. "For the history project, we had to go find some old books and one of the book stores we went to was several hours away."

His dad didn't really look very convinced but he nodded. "And none of you've left here alone after you got here?"

This time Boyd answered. "No sir, we got here and worked on our project and never left."

His dad sighed and gave Isaac an awkward pat on the shoulder that Isaac flinched away from.

His dad cleared his throat and gave Isaac a knowing, if sad, look. "Well, I'm glad you're all together. I have to go back to the station but Isaac you can stay here tonight, okay?"

Isaac nodded and Stiles started planning before his dad was even out the front door.

"Are you okay?" Erica asked quietly.

Isaac sniffled and said "The only thing I can think about is what's going to happen tomorrow."

Lydia gently reached out and touched his shoulder. "That's completely normal."

Boyd nodded. "It's the shock."

Isaac looked a little relieved and laid back down on the mattress, curling up and pressing up against as many of them as he could. No one pulled away, not even Lydia.

"There was a situation with the McCalls a few years ago." Stiles said quietly. "My dad got all the foster care paperwork and home vestest all done just in case we had to take care of Scott. He's kept it all up to date, just in case."

Isaac tipped his head back to look up at Stiles in surprise. Tears welled up in his eyes and he quickly hid his face in his arms. "I  _ can't _ go live with strangers. What if I hurt them on the full moon or something?"

Stiles gently pet through Isaac's hair. "My dad's never seen your puppy dog eyes. They're  _ way _ better than Scott's and he caved under the combination of them and my flawless logic."

Isaac sniffled again but nodded which was good enough for Stiles.

Everyone curled up and squished together with Isaac in the middle.

They slept off and on and all took turns soothing away Isaac nightmares.

~~~

Peter was... somewhere. He didn't know where exactly but he had the suspicion he was  _ in between _ places.

Strangely enough he’d always believed in reincarnation, no heaven, no hell, just a never ending cycle of birth, life, and death.

It was comforting to think that no one really died, they just ended up...somewhere else.

Of course, Peter had gone that extra step to make sure that he didn’t end up somewhere else so he shouldn’t have been surprised over the darkness.

It was entirely possible he’d been buried alive.

What a disturbing thought.

Peter would have been more worried if he couldn’t freely move his limbs.

There was nothing blocking his way, nothing above him, nothing below him, he felt like he was floating in water… Only there was no water and he could feel himself breathing in air.

If he was dead why would he need to breath?

He doubted he’d ever get an answer to any questions he had.

If time passed while he was… wherever it was, he didn’t feel it. One moment he was in nothing and the next he was standing in Lydia Martin’s bedroom.

It was a shock to the system.

He swayed on his feet and stumbled to the ground. He lay there for some time, struggling to get himself under control.

At least he now had concrete proof that his plan had worked.

And Lydia was fast asleep in bed had hadn’t realized he was in the room with her, hadn’t seen him struggling.

He could see sunlight come in from an uncovered window, watched it slid slowly across the carpet to cover his hand.

He couldn’t feel the warmth of it.

Suddenly Lydia was sitting up in bed, stretching out her arms and yawning wide.

She slid out of bed and...walked right through Peter.

Apparently ghosts were real.

All things considered for some reason Peter hadn’t considered he’d become a ghost.

~~~

Peter decided being a ghost was incredibly boring.

He couldn’t really...do much.

Sometimes he could follow Lydia around but he could never hear anything, never smell anything.

As a werewolf he’d known he relied heavily on his senses and to have them suddenly… just gone was terrible.

It was like he was consistently in a hazy cloud. Only worse because he could see everything around Lydia clearly, he just couldn’t interact with it in any way.

The times when he was with Lydia seemed random, and when he wasn’t with her he was back in the nothing ocean.

He wasn’t really sure which one was worse.

Finally, after time had seemed to pass for her but not at all for him he realized he could say words to her.

Sometimes.

That seemed to happen at random too.

The whole thing was enough to drive him crazy.

Again.

At least he’d decided it was more interesting than being trapped in his own motionless body.

At least as a ghost he could walk around a little bit.

And sometimes Lydia was interesting.

Or rather, sometimes she did interesting things.

Peter could not care any less about what a teenage girl did in her spare time or what she did in school but she seemed to have somehow become friends with Stiles and that...that caught Peter’s attention.

He couldn’t hear what they talked about, couldn’t even read their lips, no matter how hard he tried, but he could watch their body language.

Stiles didn’t seem to be doing very well.

He looked tired and stressed out.

It wasn’t what Peter had been expecting.

He’d thought that Stiles would relish being a werewolf, that he would take to it like a duck to water.

But he seemed to be struggling.

Peter found himself strangely annoyed that he couldn’t do anything to help him.

Peter certainly hadn’t wanted to help Stiles before he’d died. And while he’d had some vague ideas about what he would do if he didn’t die, he’d been fairly confident he would so he hadn’t felt the need to help Stiles even after he’d bitten him.

Maybe it was because he’d died before the bite could fully take, before a bond could form between them.

But then Lydia and Stiles did something interesting.

Peter found himself standing behind Stiles.

Stiles, Lydia, and their three new little friends that seemed to have come out of nowhere but were obviously in the know, although how they knew he had no idea, were sitting around the table in Stiles’ kitchen.

With a Ouija board.

Of all the ridiculous ideas.

Peter could feel the nothingness and  _ something else _ creeping around them, the fluorescent overhead lights not nearly enough to keep it back.

He curled possessively around Stiles’ shoulders, staring down the room in general.  _ He’d _ bitten Stiles, and whatever it was that was hovering around, drawn out by the summoning circle, half assed as it was, couldn’t have him while Peter was still interested.

He watched shadows roll and writhe around Lydia and the others at the table, slip underneath it and pool there, waiting.

Peter didn’t know shit about Ouija boards, outside of terrible teen horror movies, but he knew about summoning circles and he knew they should never be broken without taking proper precautions.

He murmured in Stiles’ ear, hoping that maybe, because Stiles had had a hand in calling him out he would be able to hear him.

_ And he could _ . He could feel him shivering under his hands, could suddenly feel warmth, could feel  _ something _ , and it was  _ amazing _ .

He wanted to bask forever in this break from the never ending nothingness.

Peter whispered in Stiles’ ear and his words fell from Stiles’ lips and floated to Lydia.

When Peter had bitten Stiles he had never expected that they would share such a connection.

Never thought that Peter’s...sprite? Consciousness? His very self could touch Stiles and use him as a conduite.

Just being able to physically feel anything, to hear Stiles’  _ voice _ , his  _ heartbeat, to be able to breath in his scent _ .

It should have sent Peter spiraling.

Instead being able to so fully focus on one person in a way he’d never,  _ ever  _ done before grounded him.

He watched the shadows and the nothingness and the presence in the room slide away and for one moment he felt alive again.

And he knew when he was back, when was really truly alive, he wouldn’t forget how he had felt in that moment.

He tightened his grip on Stiles’ hand.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so my experiment in writing scenes out of order didn't work out...at all. I wanted to actually just rewrite this whole chapter but i'm too lazy. so if it seems like Jackson is just tacked onto the second half it's because he is, that little shit.

Stiles drove everyone home the next morning and then he and Isaac went to the sheriff's station.

His dad seemed genuinely shocked that Stiles would want him to foster Isaac but he eventually agreed after a bit of persuasion and bribery.

Why his dad stayed at the station to get the paperwork done Isaac and Stiles went back to the house to make sure the guest bedroom was habitable.

It had all the basic furniture but Stiles insisted that he and Isaac go and buy some clothes and bedding and anything else Stiles could think of.

They were halfheartedly going through the clothes at Target when Isaac finally asked the question Stiles had been waiting for.

"Why did you suggest your dad foster me?" he asked quietly. "You know I could have just gone and stayed with Derek."

Stiles looked at him like he was crazy. "Do you  _ want _ to go and stay with Derek and his streetcar named depression?"

Isaac winced. "Not...really."

Stiles hummed. "The reason I suggested it is I have no idea why I suggested it."

Isaac frowned at him in confusion.

Stiles shrugged awkwardly. "A few weeks ago I wouldn't have even  _ thought _ about letting you stay at my house. Not just because we don't know each other very well but because I don't really like having other people in my house." He glanced at Isaac to see how he was taking it. He didn't seem surprised, just the same amount of confused as before. "Honestly, I'm not even sure if it'll work out, it might not, you know."

Isaac chewed his lip in thought for a moment before nodding slowly. "I'll try not to bug you too much?"

Stiles nodded. "Okay." he sent Isaac a smile he hopped looked reassuring. "Hey, I'm sure we'll figure out what we're doing eventually."

Isaac gave him a tiny little smile and a shrug and they got back to trying to find pants that would fit Isaac's dumb long legs.

***

Scott was frowning and pouting at Stiles, trying to get his attention but Stiles had decided it was his turn to give Scott the cold shoulder. If Scott could get away with it for more than a week than so could Stiles.

"I just don't get it!" Scott whined for the second time in twenty minutes. "Why can't he just live with Derek? He's his alpha."

Stiles rolled his eyes but before he could even be tempted to answer him Isaac leaned closer to Scott and said "I don't know if you've noticed this but Derek doesn't exactly have his shit together. And Sheriff Stilinski is... nice."

Considering the fact that Isaac and his dad had barely been in the same room together in the last week 'nice' was probably the best descriptor Isaac had of him.

Scott pouted harder. "But you two barely know each other."

Stiles ground his teeth together for a moment before he turned to look at Scott and realized that Scott looked  _ jealous _ . And that had to be the most ridiculous thing Stiles had ever thought. After all the bullshit Scott had put Stiles through with Allison Scott didn't get to be jealous that someone was living in Stiles' spare bedroom.

"Scott, we've explained this to you and if you don't like it, well... tough shit, it's not your problem." he almost spat in his annoyance.

Scott looked shocked but then he got that pissed off look on his face that meant he wasn't going to be talking to Stiles again for a while. Which was fine with Stiles.

Isaac looked back and forth between them for a few seconds, obviously mildly concerned but he didn't say anything, just turned back to his school work.

***

"So giant lizard monster running around killing people." Boyd said, exasperated look on his face. "And here I thought turning into something else when you're bitten was  _ rare _ ."

Derek didn't even have the decency to look chagrined. He just continued to look furious. "There's only two people it could be. Jackson or Lydia."

Stiles and Lydia looked at each other before they looked around at everyone else. Isaac, Erica, and Boyd were all rolling their eyes and said in almost unison "It's not Lydia."

Derek looked a tiny bit more pissed at that. "And how do we know this?"

Lydia huffed in amusement and said "If you're right about it killing Mr. Lahey then I couldn't have done it."

Everyone in the room, including Derek, winced a little at the reminder that Isaac had lost his dad.

Derek crossed his arms over his chest and puffed himself up to glare at Lydia "How so?"

This time everyone spoke in unison, "We were with her all day."

Derek seemed to realize he was outnumbered. He rubbed his hand over his face in frustration and Stiles  _ almost _ felt sorry for him.

"So what do we need to do to stop Jackson the lizard from killing people?" Stiles asked, fighting hard not to suggest killing him first thing, but only because Lydia would have kicked him if he had.

Derek looked down uncomfortable and Stiles fought back a groan because it didn't look like Derek had any idea what he was doing. Not that that was new, but it was still annoying.

"Kanima's have a master that tells them who to kill." Derek finally said.

Stiles hummed in thought and glanced at Lydia. "So we find the  _ master _ and I don't know, do something with them, and then have someone else be the master? Would that work."

Derek actually looked a little helpless. "It might." he said through his teeth.

Lydia was chewing on her lip in thought. She looked at Stiles gave him a tiny nod. Stiles nodded back.

"Alright!" he said, clapping his hands together. "First thing's first: talk to Jackson." There were several annoyed groans from about the room but Stiles ignored them. "Lydia, can you bring him over here or should Erica and Isaac go kidnap him?"

Lydia looked amused but she pulled out her phone so Stiles left her to it.

Isaac had drifted off to the kitchen so Stiles followed him. "You doing okay?" he asked quietly.

Isaac shrugged. "It's weird." he said slowly. "I knew he was murder but... why did someone kill him with a lizard puppet?"

Stiles gently put his hand on Isaac's shoulder and said "I have no idea but we'll probably figure it while we figure out who the master is."

Isaac nodded thoughtfully.

The two of them argued over what kind of takeout to order for a few minutes before deciding on Chinese and getting everyone to order something, even Derek.

The food showed up before Jackson did but no one was actually surprised.

Finally the doorbell rang and Lydia went to answer it.

Jackson came in, looking pissed off. "What the hell do you freaks want?"

No one was impressed by this. Werewolves were a more pressing issue than any school yard bullying Jackson could do.

Not to mention that even the humans in the room felt confident that if Jackson pushed too hard one of the werewolves would probably punch him.

Stiles looked pointedly at Derek. "You wanna take care of this?"

Derek looked like he wanted to be absolutely anywhere else but he took a deep breath and said "The bite took after all. But you're not a werewolf."

Jackson looked murderous. "All it fucking did was make me fucking sick! I'm not a werewolf or anything else!"

Stiles rolled his eyes at Jackson's lack of imagination. "Oh come on Jackson, haven't you noticed anything strange going on?"

Jackson crossed his arms over his chest stubbornly . "No."

Lydia arched her eyebrow at him. "So you haven't, say, blacked out and then woke up with no memory of what happened?"

Jackson opened and closed his mouth a few times and everyone knew that had happened to him.

"Look." Derek said awkwardly. "I bit you so now I'm responsible for making sure you don't go around killing people so can we try to figure out what's happening to you?"

Jackson seemed to deflate a little. Almost petulantly he said "I've blacked out a few times. And I had this weird dream about a snake."

That got everyone's attention.

Derek nodded. "That's not a good sign but it helps."

Jackson's jaw clenched. "So if I'm not turning into a werewolf what the fuck  _ am _ I turning into?"

Stiles let Derek and Lydia explain what was going on. Jackson probably wouldn't even listen to him if he tried to talk any more.

Instead he pulled out his laptop to alternate between research and watching the show going on in front of him.

The most interesting thing seemed to be the way Boyd was acting. He wasn't hovering over Lydia exactly but he was standing close to her, like he was offering her his silent support.

Stiles found it sweet. He obviously had a little crush and Lydia certainly didn't seem to want to discourage him the way she had with Stiles.

Maybe that was why Stiles wasn't jealous. Any romantic change he and Lydia might have had together had gotten erased by werewolves and ghosts.

Not to mention that Stiles didn't want to ruin the friendship he and Lydia were starting to have. If he started to try and make any advances with Lydia now it would just piss her off and he didn't want that.

He liked spending time with her any way she wanted to spend time with him.

It took awhile but Jackson eventually very reluctantly accepted that there was a  _ possibility _ wasn't fully human anymore and Stiles figured that was really the best they were going to get.

At least he was willing to let Isaac and Lydia hang out with him while Derek, Erica, Boyd, and Stiles staked his house out and waited for the  _ Master _ to show up so they would at least know who it was.

Derek, the absolute jackass, tried to convince Stiles and Boyd to stay out of it because they were  _ human _ , like he thought that meant they were useless or something.

That seemed to piss Boyd off in a  _ big _ way and Stiles was pretty sure Derek had managed to make sure Boyd never joined his pack.

It took a bit of debating on what they were actually going to do with the master person when they found them before everyone agreed they would let the master call Jackson, or whatever it was that happened, so that Lydia could try to convince lizard Jackson that she would make a cooler master than the person who made him kill his next door neighbor.

If they managed to make all that work than the master would just be a normal person and Stiles was willing to let his dad handle the investigation. If they caught the master that was great, it wasn't like they could wolf out on unsuspecting police officers or even tell them about their former murder pet. If they started talking about the supernatural everyone assume they were either crazy or laying the groundwork for an insanity defense and not take them seriously.

The plan was vague but better than anything Derek had thought up, which seemed to consist of  _ murder Jackson _ and strangely no one else seemed to think that was a good idea. And while Stiles was willing to keep that as a backup plan he and everyone else deferred to Lydia on how to deal with him.

It took three nights of stakeouts and Jackson getting more and more belligerent to the point Isaac actually stopped going into his house and decided to hang out with  _ Derek _ instead.

Night three something  _ finally _ happened. Some guy walked down the opposite side of the street from where Stiles had parked his jeep. It was almost two in the morning and this was the first person they'd seen walking around at night it caught everyone's attention.

"Do we go to school with that guy?" Boyd asked in bafflement.

"I don't know..." Stiles said slowly, squinting in the dark to try and see the guys face.

They watched him walk down the street and stop in front of Jackson's house and just stand there.

"This has to be it." Stiles said with a sigh of relief. He'd already suspected stakeouts were fun but after experiencing three in a row he officially hated them.

He, Boyd, and Erica all climbed out of the jeep and crept down the street while Isaac and Derek walked down the other side to make sure the master couldn't run off.

The front door of Jackson's house opened and Jackson The Lizard Person crawled out. He had a tail and scales and everything.

"Okay, you have to admit he looks cooler than werewolves do." Stiles said, making the master jump and spin around to look at him.

Boyd and Erica both groaned.

"Are you here to stop me?" The guy, who's name was Ted or something equally boring, asked.

"Got it in one!" Stiles said with a smile, fully willing to play distraction while Isaac and Derek snuck up on the guy.

Lydia came stumbling out of the house with her hand on the back of her neck. "Jackson you bastard!" she yelled.

The guy, Matt, Stiles was pretty sure it was Matt, looked shocked to see her. "He cut you! You shouldn't be walking around!"

Derek used his shock to grab him and held him still so he couldn't run off with Lizard Jackson.

Now came the part they weren't sure would actually work.

Matt was yelling and struggling to get away from Derek while Lizard Jackson looked ready to attack.

"Okay Jackson." Lydia said, stepping in front of him with her hands up placatingly. "You know if I wanted to murder anyone I wouldn't need you to do it for me, I'd definitely be able to do it myself."

Lizard Jackson tipped his head to the side curiously. He leaned closer to her like he was either sniffing at her or maybe testing how nervous he was making her.

Lydia didn't even twitch.

Slowly Lizard Jackson raised his hand up and Matt actually screamed so Stiles hoped they were on the right track.

Lydia looked from Jackson's hand to his creepy snake face before she slowly raised her hand back and pressed their palms together.

Jackson's scales seemed to slide off of him and he shrank a little in size, his tail disappearing to... somewhere.

Then he was standing naked in front of Lydia looking dazed.

Matt had stopped screaming but now he was crying and muttering no over and over.

Isaac carefully walked around Jackson and Lydia and stepped up in front of Matt.

"So why'd you kill my dad?" he asked. His voice was steady but Stiles could see how upset he was by the set of his shoulders and the blank look on his face.

Matt sniffled and said, almost petulantly, "He killed me."

For a second no one said anything and then finally Isaac said "Yeah okay I can see that."

And that was that.

Derek threatened Matt within an inch of his life while Stiles plucked some hair off of his head. He left Matt to flounder on his own and walked across the street with Isaac and Erica following him.

He scooped out the outside of Isaac's old house to try and find the best place to plant the hair, somewhere that the crime scene techs wouldn't have already checked but someone on the lookout for new clues would notice.

He concentrated on the pool, which had been drained out. He finally decided on just sticking them into one of the metal joints on the side of the diving board, where it would be conceivable that the killer had hit his head a little during the struggle.

If no one found them that would be okay, Stiles knew who the killer was now, he could always just call in an anonymous hint that he'd seen Matt leaving Isaac's old house the night of the murder.

Evidence planted he turned to check on Isaac.

Erica was leaning against him while he frowned at the house.

"You doing okay?" Stiles asked even though he  _ knew _ he wasn't.

Isaac gave him a dry look and shrugged his shoulders. "I don't really understand but I also  _ do _ understand at the same time so." he shrugged awkwardly.

Stiles heart ached a little at more proof that Isaac's dad hadn't been the best, or even really  _ okay _ .

Stiles wondered if there were any therapists in the know running around. And if there were that they didn't charge out the nose.

"You okay with just letting him go like we did?" Stiles asked.

Isaac gave him a grim smile. "If he was willing to adopt a murder lizard to kill someone I have the feeling he's going to do something else to catch the attention of the police."

Erica gave Isaac's shoulder an affectionate punch. "Yeah he seemed a little off his rocker."

"Okay, let's get out of here before someone calls the police on  _ us _ ." Stiles said with a sigh.

They made their way back to Stiles' jeep and Boyd was leaning against it waiting for them.

"Lydia's staying with Jackson tonight and Derek took off after he scared the piss out of Jackson's would be master." He said calmly.

They all climbed into the jeep and Stiles drove Boyd and Erica home before he drove Isaac and himself home too.

They hovered in the hallway outside their different rooms, Stiles kind of wanted to give him a hug but he wasn't sure Isaac would be okay with that.

He decided he might as well ask. "Hug?"

Isaac looked surprised for a second before he gave a tiny little smile shoulder checked Stiles, one arm coming up to pat Stiles hard on the back.

"Thanks for your help tonight."

Stiles shrugged awkwardly. "I didn't really do much?"

Isaac just smirked at him. "You know what I mean."

Stiles did not know what he meant but he let Isaac go into his room without trying to make him explain. It was possible he just meant emotional support after all.

***

Matt turned out to be as crazy as Isaac had predicted. He tried to kill a mechanic by lowering a car on top of him, seemingly forgetting that auto shops could have pits under the cars. The mechanic fell into the pit, broke his leg, and was  _ seriously _ pissed about it.

Apparently after Matt had gotten arrested for that attempted murder he'd confessed to killing both Isaac's dad and some pregnant woman. Needless to say Stiles' dad was glad to have gotten him before he killed anyone else.

"Well that worked out better than expected." Stiles said hesitantly. He had the strange feeling they had missed or forgotten something.

"One less thing for us to worry about." Lydia said absently from the armchair where Jackson was giving her a head massage.

Apparently the more a person pissed Lydia off the more Jackson wanted to murder them and the whole thing was giving her a headache because it seemed like  _ almost everyone _ pissed Lydia off.

Everybody had decided to take turns distracting her to help stop Jackson from accidentally going into a murderous rage on her behave.

Erica and Isaac asked her math related questions, although not school math. She was way too good at multitasking to be distracted by basic math. They tended to ask about any sort of interesting advancement that had happened lately. That at least proved to be interesting to everyone involved.

Boyd liked to argue with her about whatever it was they were currently arguing her about. Stiles had worried initially that arguing wither Lydia was a sure fire way to piss her off and send Jackson into a murderous lizard rage but for some reason when it came to Lydia's new circle of friends she seemed... to actually like all of them.

After days of all six of them hanging out together and Jackson not once growing scales everyone else started to relax which made Jackson relax which was definitely a good thing.

The guy was still a serious asshole and no one really liked him, not even Lydia some days, but they decided to accept him because 'keep your friends close and your murderous lizard monster acquaintance that could go off at the drop of a hat closer.'

"Do you think creepy ghost Peter will have any ideas how to help Jackson stop wanting to murder everyone?" Boyd asked suddenly.

"God, I hope so." Lydia said with a sigh.

"The question isn't will him know, but will he  _ tell us _ ." Isaac said sagely.

Jackson cracked his knuckles. "If he doesn't tell us I'll make him."

Stiles made a mental note to make sure Jackson never got his claws into Peter. It would be one thing if Jackson could just beat him up but it was something else entirely with the paralytic goo on his claws.

Making Peter paralyzed from the neck down should only happen if they were going to kill him.

Stiles knew himself well enough to know that while he probably wouldn't feel  _ that _ about it he also didn't want to do anything bad enough to Peter to make him go on another murder spree.

Luckily everyone else seemed to think putting someone who had been in a coma into a paralyzed state was a bad idea.

"Let's save that as a last resort." Lydia said cautiously while Boyd, Erica, and Isaac gave Jackson worried looks.

"You're dad's home." Erica suddenly said and everyone looked at the front door as it opened.

Stiles' dad stepped and paused when he saw everyone staring at him.

"Uh, hi?" he said awkwardly.

Everyone said hello back and Stiles helpfully said "We made casserole. It's still warm."

'We' being Stiles and Isaac had made the casserole while everyone else had supervised and criticized them until they'd gotten kicked out of the kitchen.

His dad still looked a little baffled. "You guys haven't finished your history project yet?"

"What history project?" Jackson asked, eyes wide with a little bit of panic.

There was a very long awkward pause before his dad finally said "Stiles can I talk to you in the kitchen for a second?"

Stiles winced and Isaac looked white as a sheet. Stiles gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder as he slipped past him and walked into the kitchen.

"Okay what the hell is going on? Suddenly I never see Scott but instead three kids I've never  _ once _ heard you talk about and freaking  _ Lydia Martin _ ? Supposed love of your life? And now Jackson Whittemore is sitting in our living room?" his dad said, crossing his arms over his chest and staring Stiles down.

Stiles sighed deeply. He wasn't about to drop the werewolf bombshell now, not after they'd handled the latest supernatural problem with minimal blood shed.

"It all sort of happened on accident." Stiles said. It was really the best explanation he had other than werewolves made them do it.

His dad didn't look convinced. "So what about this 'history project'?" he asked, putting his hands up to use air quotes.

Stiles winced and shrugged. "We were just all hanging around suddenly and I knew you would think it was weird so..."

His dad actually looked kind of sorry, like he felt bad that he might have made Stiles lie to him. "Stiles I don't care if you have more friends than just Scott. In fact, that's actually a really good thing?"

Stiles just shrugged awkwardly.

"Where  _ is _ Scott, by the way?" his dad asked.

Stiles scowled a little bit. Scott had  _ not _ been pleased when he found out that not only had there been a supernatural wielding murderer running around but no one had invited him to help catch him.

"He's off pining after Allison still."

His dad sighed and patted Stiles on the shoulder. "I'm sure he'll come around eventually."

Stiles just nodded because he had the feeling that the less time they spent together the more Scott got pissed at him. Which didn't make any goddamn sense to Stiles.  _ Scott _ was the one who kept bailing on their plans.

"Okay, I'll let you get back to your friends now."

Stiles gave him a tight smile and walked back into the living room.

No one pretended that they hadn't been listening so he wasn't surprised by the way Isaac bumped his shoulder against Stiles' when he sat back down on the couch.

***

After that the little bit of tension that had been hanging in the house vanished and Isaac threw himself into helping Stiles around the house and with the groceries with abandon.

"You do realize you don't have to do this to earn your keep, right?" Stiles asked, wondering what he would do if Isaac _did_ think that.

Isaac sent him a look Stiles couldn't really understand. "Do you?"

Stiles jerked away from him. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Isaac looked a little mutinous. "Stiles it's been _three weeks_ I've seen your dad like four times."

Stiles opened and closed his mouth, lost for words. For some reason it hadn't occurred to him that Isaac would think his relationship with his dad was strange.

"We have a system. It works for us." Stiles said defensively.

"Yeah, so that's why you decided to lie to him instead of just saying you ended up with some new friends?"

Stiles spun around to glare at him. "Like you wouldn't have done the _same thing_ with your-"

Isaac reared back from him.

Stiles gasped and covered his mouth. "I'm sorry." he mumbled. "I didn't mean to imply- My dad's never-"

Isaac's shoulders relaxed but he shook his head. "No, you're right, but that doesn't make me feel any better."

Stiles rubbed his hand over his face. He just didn't know what to say.

Isaac at least seemed to understand what Stiles was feeling. He sighed and said "I'm not judging or anything. I'm just... a little worried." he paused and sent Stiles one of his awkward little smile. "We're friends right? I'm allowed to worry."

Stiles chuckled quietly. "Yeah okay." he agreed halfheartedly.

Isaac nodded and they went back to folding laundry.

***

Stiles heard a key in the front door and frowned, turning to look at Isaac who was sitting next to him on the couch. They weren't expecting his dad to be home for hours.

The door flew open and Lydia flounced in, Boyd, Erica, and Jackson on her heels.

"Uh..." Stiles said, baffled. "Why do you have a key to my house?"

Lydia looked at him like he was an idiot and pulled his key-ring off of the rack next to the door. She held it up and raised an eyebrow challengingly.

Stiles fought back a cringe.

"Never mind." he said quickly, not wanting to get into how exactly he'd gotten a key to everyone's house and why he had them.

Lydia smirked at him, put the keys back, and came over to sit next to him on the couch.

Boyd and Erica sat down on the floor on the other side of the coffee table from them while Jackson disappeared into the kitchen for some reason.

"So the full moon is coming up." Lydia said without preamble. "What are we going to do about that?"

Stiles sighed and flopped back against the couch. "Well, Scott's first full moon didn't go so over very well but I'm not sure how much of that was because it was his first one or because Peter was fucking with him."

Isaac hummed thoughtfully before he hesitantly said "If we asked Derek to help he might actually do something this time?"

Stiles looked at Erica. She chewed her lip for a moment before she shrugged and said "Might as well give it a try."

***

"No." Lydia said, arms crossed and with a scowl on her face.

"No fucking way." Stiles said in complete agreement.

Derek looked a little like he wanted to murder both of them. "It's the only way for them to handle the full moon until they find their anchor."

"Good job teaching them how to find their anchors." Boyd said, calm as could be but Stiles had no doubt he was ready to explode into fury on Issac and Erica's behalf if Derek said the wrong thing.

"I would have been teaching them if they didn't refuse to even _talk_ to me." Derek hissed.

Erica hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe we don't want to talk to you until you apologize for keeping things from us."

"It wasn't nes-" Derek started but Isaac cut him off before he could finish.

"Like hell it wasn't _necessary_. You didn't give us all of the facts."

"If I told you would have still agreed, besides it's done now, there's no going back so you just have to deal with the consequences." Derek said, and Stiles winced at how self confident he sounded. He really was fucking the whole 'a good alpha' thing up.

Boyd made a sound that was almost a growl. "_I_ didn't agree once I had all the facts, so who's to say they would have? Besides, you have consequences you have to deal with now and you're not doing it."

Derek looked a little hurt for a moment before he puffed himself up. "Fine. Do you want me to apologize? I'm sorry I didn't tell you anything. Satisfied?"

Erica snorted and Isaac's face was completely blank.

"This is solving nothing." Lydia said after a long moment of silence. "What options are there besides find their anchor and _torture_?"

Derek seemed to realize he was fighting a losing battle. "None. That's it."

Jackson loudly cleared his throat and everyone turned to look at him. He held up his hands pointedly.

“No fucking way.” Erica hissed. Isaac nodded hard in agreement.

Jackson shrugged but Stiles filed that away as a last, _last_ resort.

Stiles rubbed his hands over his face in exasperation. He was really getting sick and tired of going to Derek for help and getting basically nothing.

He felt someone bump their shoulder against his and glanced over at Isaac questioningly.

Isaac tipped his head towards the door and Stiles nodded.

"Come one guys." he glanced at Derek, taking in his eyebrows of unhappiness. "If we need your help we'll let you know."

Derek didn't say anything.

***

They spent the weekend searching through the old books Stiles had found when they'd been out looking for information on ghosts.

The two books were made out of worn leather, with no title and questionable binding. But every time Stiles touched them they made his fingers tingle strangely and when Isaac had tried to pick one up it had literally burned his palm.

They weren't written in english so Stiles sighed and pulled up google translate before Lydia plucked one off of his lap.

"This is written in Archaic Latin." She said and curled up next to Stiles on the couch.

Everyone turned to stare at her.

She glanced up from the book with an arched eyebrow. "What? I read."

"_Archaic Latin_?" Boyd asked, sounding strangled.

Lydia shrugged casually and turned back to the book.

Stiles looked around at Erica, Isaac, and Boyd and saw that they were all looking at Lydia with clear amazement on their faces. Jackson was looking at her with what Stiles would tentatively call awe.

He realized that Lydia had friends now, more than just Allison, _real_ friends who had her back and supported her.

They'd already known about her love of math but everyone at school already knew she was good at math, it was hard for her to hide it when she was in the most advanced math class the school had.

It was different when they saw her intelligence in other areas and Stiles realized he felt so _happy_ for her.

***

Lydia, of course, had an answer for them in less than two hours.

"Of course, the hard part will be finding mountain ash-"

"Found some." Erica said, holding her phone up. "Amazon, two day delivery with prime."

Everyone stared at her. She shrugged awkwardly. "What? I do a lot of online shopping."

Honestly Stiles was just shocked that they had been able to come up with an actual feasible plan in under three hours. He felt... pretty proud of everyone.

"We should celebrate." he said on a whim, cutting Boyd off in the middle of explaining why amazon was actually run by the devil.

"Let him finish." Lydia said with a glare at Stiles.

Stiles pouted at her and she smiled softly so he knew she had just been playing with him.

They did end up celebrating by going out for ice cream because everyone liked ice cream, except Jackson who insisted on getting fro-yo, much to everyone’s amusement and even mild indulgence.

***

The mountain ash showed up and Stiles, Lydia, and Boyd all took turns trying out making circles for Isaac, Erica, and Jackson to stand inside of in Stiles' backyard.

They spent hours experimenting, finding out that Stiles could make whole circles neither werewolf or kanima could cross while when Boyd and Lydia made circles those didn't stop them. 

Strangely if Stiles made most of the circle and Boyd or Lydia finished it the circle worked, but only if the opening was smaller than a foot.

It was a long day and Stiles' neighbors probably thought he was more crazy than they already thought he was.

At least he wasn't standing outside by himself looking crazy like he usually did. It felt pretty good to have people to act crazy with.

***

"So what are you doing for the full moon?" Stiles asked Scott, poking him in the back as they waited for class to begin.

Scott sent him an eye roll over his shoulder. "Why do you care? Don't you have other people to worry about?"

Stiles fought back hurt at the dig. "Scott, I still care about you, you know."

Scott turned away from him. "You're not doing a very good job of showing it lately."

"Jesus Christ." Isaac breathed from the next desk over.

Stiles didn't talk much the rest of the day.

***

The day before the full moon they piled into Lydia's care and went one town over to a pet shop.

"I don't mean to be insensitive or anything but you two are already feeling aggressive and you need something you can take that out on that isn't yourselves."

That weekend Stiles and Isaac had picked up used two tires that they'd bought online but Stiles wanted them to have more entertainment than that.

"We're not fucking dogs." Erica said with a tired sigh, having already said that exact thing the first time Stiles had suggested it.

"I know that." Stiles said kindly. Erica and Isaac gave him unimpressed glares.

"Just channel your inner wolf and find something you can rip to shreds tomorrow night."

Boyd and Lydia wisely left Stiles to deal with Isaac and Erica alone and went off to look at the kittens for sale, dragging Jackson along with them because he wouldn’t stop sniggering and no one wanted to have a murder happen in the middle of Petsmart.

"At least he isn't suggesting dog treats." Isaac said to Erica in a stage whisper.

"Don't give him ideas!" she hissed back.

They found some thick rubber kongs at least.

***

The full moon came and Isaac and Erica spent the day snapping at everyone that wasn't Stiles, Lydia, or Boyd. They seemed especially annoyed at Jackson which Stiles thought actually made sense with the way he kept poking at them, although he didn’t seem to be affected by the moon for some reason, he was just being his normal asshole self.

The moment school was out they all went back to Stiles' house and trooped to the garage.

They'd moved around the boxes that usually lived in it and had made a big enough space to lay two mountain ash circles.

They'd debated putting one inside just in case having Isaac and Erica so close together would agitate them but Isaac and Erica both said they would rather have the other where they could see them as opposed to being able to just hear them.

Stiles laid out the circles and once that was done, everyone put out the blankets, food, tires, and 'toys'.

Once each circle met Isaac and Erica's standards they went back inside to make dinner.

Even though the days were only just starting to warm up Stiles pulled the grill out to cook two thick stakes and three smaller ones, Isaac and Erica watching intently over his shoulder.

While they were doing that Boyd and Lydia were making salads and real mashed potatoes inside with Jackson cooking up his own vegetarian patties.

By mutual agreement once the food was done they all squished around the kitchen table instead of sprawling out in the living room like they normally did.

Stiles tried to remember the last time he'd eaten at the table with someone else while he poked at his, admittedly delistious, mashed potatoes.

Isaac elbowed him hard in the side and when Stiles looked at him in confusion Isaac gave his best innocent look.

Stiles rolled his eyes but he smiled at actually started eating.

***

Isaac and Erica spent the first two hours after the moon rose growling and snapping at everyone and each other, throwing themselves against the circles and howling on and off in a what Stiles thought might have been anguish.

It certainly gave him the chills.

Stiles, Lydia, and Boyd were laying on a blowup mattress, heavy blankets over them to keep the cold of the concrete floor away.

Jackson, asshole that he was sitting down in front of the circles and silently taunted Erica and Isaac with his gross hands and weird snake eyes until Lydia said the noise they were making was giving her a headache and made him come over and rub her shoulders.

The over head light was off and instead the room was lit with electric camp lights. Lydia and Boyd were taking turns reading out loud original, or as original as google could find, Grimm fairy tales.

Stiles was mostly asleep, only Isaac and Erica's occasional howling keeping him awake.

Suddenly the betas head's shot up and they jumped to their feet, snarling and lunging against the mountain ash.

Stiles' heard a muffled "I swear to God-!" and he struggled to jump off of the air mattress. Before he could get up the garage door flew open and his dad stood in the doorway, haloed by the hall light.

"Stiles! What the hell is going on?" he shouted and flicked on the overhead lights. "The station got three different calls about-"

He went still at the sight of Erica and Isaac, who of course were shifted with glowing gold eyes.

His dad's hand slowly lowered to gun at his side and Stiles finally managed to get to his feet, with Boyd and Lydia following right behind him.

"Dad stop! Everything's totally fine!" Stiles yelped, his hands out to try and shoo his dad back into the house. Although he was sure it was a wasted effort, his dad wasn't about to let go of finding two werewolves in his garage.

"Stiles." he said calmly, reaching out to grab onto Stiles' arm and no doubt pull Stiles behind him.

Isaac started to snarl even louder and threw himself even harder against the circle.

"Isaac, it's okay." Stiles said, voice low and calm. He took a slow step away from his dad, who held perfectly still, hand still on the butt of his gun.

Isaac's growling slowly tapered off, only to instantly start again, along with Erica, who had started to calm down when Isaac did.

And then suddenly, Chris Argent was standing behind his dad with a gun in his hand. "Sheriff I need you to step aside."

Stiles panicked.

With only the passing thought to wonder exactly who Chris Argent thought he was, walking right into the sheriff's house with a gun drawn, he threw himself past his dad and in front of Argent.

"Don't even fucking think about it." Stiles hissed, grabbing the door and throwing it closed behind him.

He could hear his dad, Lydia, and Boyd all shouting while Isaac and Erica went crazy howling their heads off. Stiles pressed his back against the door, threw the lock, and then locked his knees so that the door definitely couldn't swing back open.

Argent stared him down, face almost pitying but Stiles thought he might have been imagining that. At least he wasn't raising his gun, Stiles wasn't sure what he would do if that happened.

"You need to step aside, son." Argent said, voice grave.

Stiles' eyes narrowed. "Do you really want to have to deal with my dad, the sheriff, in his own house?"

Argent didn't even blink. "Considering what he just saw I don't think he'd actually stop me."

Through the door Stiles could hear his dad's muffled voice yelling "The hell I won't stop you with whatever it is you think you're doing in my house!" and then, quieter, probably to Boyd and Lydia "Who the fuck's out there and what the fuck does he want?"

Argent frowned a little but Stiles jumped in before he could say anything else.

"I have everything under control, there's no reason for you to be here with your werewolf killing mindset when the most they're doing is pissing off the neighbors."

"You're playing with fire here Stiles." Argent said.

Stiles sneered at him. "You really want to go over all of that with me again?"

Argent twitched. For a moment he didn't move. And then he slid his gun into the holster under his jacket and turned to walk away. "Don't think I won't be watching." he said over his shoulder.

Stiles snorted. "The way you watched your sister while she killed the Hales?"

Argent flinched, just slightly, just enough for Stiles to catch it.

He took a breath and narrowed his eyes at Stiles before he said loudly, "Sheriff, you come by later, we can talk about all of this." the he had the nerve to smirk at Stiles like he'd thought he'd won something.

"You're goddamn right we're going to be talking about you walking into my house uninvited Chris Argent!" his dad yelled through the door and Argent's eyes widened slightly as he started to realize that he'd messed up somewhere.

Stiles smirked at him and he finally turned and stomped out.

Once Stiles was sure Argent was gone he carefully opened the garage door and peeked inside, bracing himself for the lecture he was sure he dad was going to give him.

Inside the garage Isaac's circle had been broken by someone and his dad was giving Isaac what looked to be an awkward hug while Lydia and Boyd tried to pretend they weren't paying attention by playing catch with Erica, who was still very much wolfed out and inside her circle, making faces at Jackson and ignoring Boyd and Lydia.

"Everything okay in here?" Stiles asked nervously.

His dad and Isaac both instantly turned to glare at him.

In unison they said "Seriously, Stiles?"

His dad continued while Isaac crossed his arms over his chested and looked pissed. "I can't believe you would throw yourself into danger like that- wait no, you've apparently been hiding werewolves from me for months so actually, now I can believe anything."

Stiles winced and hung his head in shame.

"I kind of just... reacted..." he said softly.

Both Isaac and his dad seemed to deflate a little and then they both moved over to him to give him a duel hug. He blinked in shock. His dad wasn’t reacting at all how he’d expected him to if he ever found out about werewolves.

"Jesus Stiles, you can't just keep..." his dad started, trailing off and rubbing his hand over his face. "At least why you were so insistent about Isaac staying with us makes sense now."

Isaac sent his dad a mildly worried look. “Is that still-”

His dad sent him an exasperated look. “Don’t even finish that sentence, kid, I’m not going to kick you because you howl at the moon.” he winced and sent Stiles a glare. “Although we’re going to have to figure out something else to do because if the neighbors call me every month on the full moon someone is bound to put two and two together and get werewolves.”

Everyone shared a glance and Stiles said “Well, hopefully before the next one we’ll have a bit more help.”

His dad narrowed his eyes. “Maybe you should start at the beginning.”

Stiles sighed but let Isaac and his dad usher him into the kitchen so the two of them could go over everything while Boyd and Lydia kept an eye on Jackson and Erica.

Stiles had been expecting the night to be long but having to give his dad _the talk_ would probably make it ten times longer.

***

Stiles woke up from a sound sleep with a gasp, shocked that he was awake. He sat up quickly, feeling the hair on the back of his neck raise like someone was staring at him but the room was pitch black. He squinted in the dark for a moment trying to see the room around.

His sleep muddled brain finally remembered that there was a light on the bedside table so he leaned over and flicked it on.

Only for the bulb's filament to pop. The sound was harsh in the silent room and Stiles flinched away so hard he's hand hit his lamp and it went flying to the ground.

The bulb shattered and he winced at the crunch sound the lampshade made as it was no doubt bent out of shape.

And then he felt a hand on his face.

He shrieked and lashed out into the dark, terrified.

For a moment he felt more hands on him, too many hands for just one person, clinging to his shoulders and arms and grabbing his ankles.

He screamed and thrashed, struggling against the invisible appendages.

And then...

He blinked in the soft half glow of the hall light.

"Stiles?" Isaac asked from his now open bedroom door. "Are you okay?" he yawned and he was rubbing at his eye with one fist. Obviously Stiles had woken him up.

"I-" Stiles gasped.

His mind still had the haze of sleep over it and he couldn't tell if he'd just had an incredibly vivid dream or ghost hands had actually been grabbing at him.

He looked over and saw that his bedside light wasn't sitting next to his bed.

He leaned across the bed to look at the mess he'd made, already annoyed that he would have to clean it up, and as he put his hand on the mattress pain shot up his arm and he gasped in shock.

He sat up and pulled his shirt sleeve up, squinting in the dark.

“Isaac...” he said hesitantly. “Could you turn on the light, please?”

The light flicked on and he winced hard, blinking away the spots in his eyes before he could see his wrist clearly.

“What’s wrong?” Isaac asked, climbing up onto the bed to see what Stiles was staring at. He paused and hissed “What the fuck?” pointing at Stiles’ neck

There was a dark, thick red circle on his wrist, already darkening into a deep purple bruise.

Stiles quickly pulled up the sleeve on his other arm and then pulled his legs out from under the blankets.

He stared at the four matching marks.

“What the fuck happened?” Isaac asked in horror.

Stiles shook his head in denial and winced at the twinge that sent up his neck. He had a terrible feeling he had a fifth mark there.

There was a creak in the hallway and Stiles jumped, suddenly terrified.

“What in the world is going on?” his dad asked, squinting and frowning.

Stiles sniffled and quickly climbed off the end of his bed and into his dad’s arms.

“Jesus kid.” he said, craning his head to look at Stiles’ neck. “Where did this come from?”

Stiles just shook his head. “Can I sleep with you?” he whispered.

“Of course.” his dad said without hesitation, pulling Stiles out of the doorway and down the hall, Isaac following right behind them, into his dad’s bedroom.

He curled up, shaking hard but already feeling better with his dad on one side of him and Isaac on the other.

He didn’t sleep at all that night, too busy trying not to think about shadows that were alive and coming for him.

~~~

Peter wasn't sure exactly how it had happened but he wasn't going to complain about the change of scenery. Following Stiles around instead of Lydia was infinitely more amusing to him anyway.

He had some theories over what why he was with Stiles instead of Lydia, and it wasn't as if he had anything else do _but_ think in the nothing.

Of course, the downside of following Stiles around was having to deal with the shadows.

It was like the seance had given an open invitation to follow Stiles, the same way Peter was.

It annoyed and even worried him.

He couldn't decide if the shadows were ghosts, demons, or maybe even creatures he didn't know the names of.

Either way the way the slid around just in the corner of his vision, gone when he turned his head, gave him the creeps.

They were worse at night, curling along the ceiling of Stiles' bedroom, wiggling like worms under his bed.

Every night they crept closer and closer.

And then one night one tendril of _nothing_ slid against Stiles' hand.

Peter snarled and the tendril slide away again.

Peter supposed not needing to sleep could have its advantages.

After that, every night the tendrils got bolder, more of them sliding closer and closer to Stiles' sleeping form.

Peter kept snarling at them, lunging when the snarls stopped working.

The first time he grabbed a handful of nothingness there was an inhuman, ear splitting scream, so piercing Peter screamed and covered his ears. doubled over in actual _physical_ pain.

When he finally pulled himself together again he could _hear_ Stiles was whimpering softly in his sleep but the nothingness wasn't anywhere in the room that Peter could see.

He carefully sat down on the edge of Stiles' bed, absently noting the blankets didn't move, that the mattress didn't dip under his weight. He ignored that and gently, carefully slid his hand through Stiles' hair.

He watched, fascinated, as the locks moved under his finger tips.

Stiles sighed softly and Peter listened to his heartbeat slow back down as he slid deeper into sleep.

Peter wasn't sure how long after that the tendrils got bored of dealing with Peter, until they converged onto Stiles en masse.

Horrified, having no idea what would happen to Stiles, what the nothing even wanted from in the first place, Peter threw himself onto the bed.

He bit and scratched at the writhing mass over Stiles, could feel his beta shift come over him for the first time since he'd died.

The nothing didn't seem to care at all about his fangs and claws. Any part he managed to somehow injure just slid away to be replaced by another shadow.

Frustration was starting to take him over and he realized he could hear Stiles _screaming_.

And then he felt... something else happening.

His alpha skin slid over him, that spark he'd stolen seemed to fill him full to bursting, and suddenly he was twice the size of the nothing, like he was as big as Stiles' room, like _he_ was made of shadows.

He heard _nothing_.

It was like the oppressive silence of the nothingness but somehow _loud_. Heavy in the air, so heavy he couldn't breath, like he really had fallen into the ocean.

Waves seemed to lap against his fur, slid between his fingers and into his open mouth.

He realized had closed his eyes at some point. He opened them and saw Stiles sitting up in bed, shaking but in the doorway one of his new little friends was standing, talking to him.

Peter felt the waves crash over him and then...

Nothing.

For a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright guys the next chapter will not be written out of order so it should be better but who even knows with me

**Author's Note:**

> (this might end up only being two chapters? idk i haven't written the rest of peter's pov yet so i don't know how talkative he'll be)
> 
> anyway come hang out with on [tumblr](https://graciebirdie.tumblr.com) if you feel like it


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